Seven Deadly Sins
by AngelofPrey
Summary: Character studies of Jefferson and Emma, particularly their vices, and how these vices brought them together. A series of shorts written for the Seven Deadly Sins Week over at Mad Swan Feels on Tumblr.
1. Wrath

Disclaimer: Don't own Once, or any of its characters. I'm just here to play.

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Wrath

His madness sometimes manifests in uncontrollable rages; when the howling in his head putrefies in his heart and works through his lungs, eventually to be expelled in words only half formed when they are uttered. He howls for justice, for Grace, and for all the things he has been denied since he was trapped in Wonderland. He had thought that there could be no worse hell than the Queen of Hearts' domain. He was wrong.

Storybrooke is worse… much_ much_ worse.

Everything he longs for is out on display and yet further out of his reach than ever before. In Storybrooke no one remembers who they are, and they call Jefferson ugly names for telling the truth.

"Insane" They say.

"Eccentric" Is the kinder version, but said with no less of a warning.

"Hospitalization." Is the general opinion on what to do with him.

"Treatment." And "Lock him up!" are also frequently mentioned.

"Mad." Is the one thing that everyone agrees on… but for all the wrong reasons.

It's the frustration that gets to him when it's not the grief. Either way, they both get mixed into the emotional Molotov that he will one day use to burn the Queen's pretty little castle to ashes. They say that hell hath no fury as a woman scorned… but whoever says that hasn't tasted a mad hatter's wrath.

The destruction he causes in such episodes stupefies even himself when he finally snaps out of them. The morning after the first time he met Emma Swan was no different. He feels that he should go and apologize to her at some point, but he doesn't think that she'd be terribly receptive to seeing him again.

He settles for leaving an anonymous bouquet of flowers and a box of her favorite cookies from Granny's sitting on her front stoop for her to find the next time she steps out her door. He realizes that it might come off as a little crazy, but he hopes that she'll forgive him… for everything.

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Emma drinks to forget.

She's spent long nights in many a police station holding cell when the drink doesn't provide the amnesia as it's supposed to. Or at least the distraction.

Emma has plenty to be angry about; absent parents, abusive foster families, back-stabbing lovers, etc. She drinks to forget, because if she didn't she'd spend every waking hour taking it out on the world and ultimately, on herself. That's why she became a bounty hunter, she could beat the crap out of a guy and no one would blame her, the money isn't too bad either. Ultimately she does it for the pleasure, for the catharsis of bringing a sonofabitch to justice.

She doesn't tell anyone, but she especially enjoys bringing in the parents who skip out on their child support bills, and the guys who cheat a woman out of her money… Not that there's anyone to tell, but that's a part of being a creature of pain and wrath; no one sticks around for too long, not that she does either.

If she's honest, all the whiskey and all the fugitives in the world would do little to quench the fire in her guts that was kindled by the various betrayals in her life. She realizes she should probably be in therapy or something… an abandoned kid's version of AA, but as far as she knows that doesn't actually exist, and even if it did she doesn't stay in one place long enough for it to make a difference.

It isn't until she's drinking to forget a man who called himself the Mad Hatter that she really mulls over his words. Whether Mary Margaret is her biological mother or not, is irrelevant. Mary Margaret has become the closest thing to family she's ever had… And then there's Henry; sweet, brave, slightly delusional little Henry whom she couldn't be more fascinated by. And some of the anger starts to slip away. Her parents abandoned her and her boyfriend screwed her over… but that was the past, it couldn't be changed, but Emma did have control over her future and whether or not she wanted the family that Storybrooke was offering. Whether or not she accepted it was entirely up to Emma.

So she downs the remains of her drink, leaves a few crumpled bills on the counter and goes to see about not dousing the fire in her heart per say, but instead using a different sort of fuel to feed it. And she admits to no one in particular, for no one is around to hear her, that it would be a welcome change. She does wonder about the flowers and the cinnamon cookies sitting on her doorstep when she returns home, but they are beautiful and delicious respectively, so that is as far as her thoughts on the subject wander.

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A/N: I'd love to hear your feedback, if you have only one word to give or many! But thanks for reading all the same! Hope you enjoyed.

Next up: Greed.


	2. Greed

Greed

As a younger man Jefferson had been a creature whose existence was entirely defined by wealth, fashion, luxury and their acquisition. No amount of money was ever enough to satisfy his desires, and whenever his latest toy was acquired his attention would be snared by the next shiny bauble to pass him by. Jefferson's association with Rumpelstiltskin had fed this flame by constantly keeping him in full and fashionable pockets. But it was never enough, he would do almost anything for more. Growing up an orphan, left to one's own devices and never knowing where or when the next meal came from can do that to a person.

Then along came Grace.

Grace changed everything, she was a beautiful accident that forced Jefferson to accept responsibility for his actions and to grow up quickly in order to provide for his new family. He became the father he wished he had had during his own childhood, but still the greed remained in his heart.

The shock of losing his wife, Grace's mother, made it so that a small house in the forest and a simple life of selling mushrooms was almost ideal. Grace grew up without the fear of losing her remaining parent, and Jefferson could devote all that was left of himself to his daughter. However, when he was unable to fulfill his sweet daughter's wishes whether it was to buy her chocolate, or a new stuffed rabbit, or worse, to fill her rumbling belly during many lean winters the shame he felt at not being able to properly provide for her ate at his heart. With no other skills aside from thievery, confidence schemes and the occasional poor scrap of tailoring, Jefferson had little to sell to earn his bread and it made him sometimes long for the life he had left behind; if only to be able to give beautiful things to his daughter.

It was the promise of this glinting gold that led Jefferson astray and trapped him in Wonderland. The promise of Grace being provided for, for the rest of her days, was too strong to ignore. The tantalizing apple dangled, a taste of his old life returned, was too good to pass up.

Unsurprisingly, the apple was poisoned.

In Storybrooke, Regina had provided him with all the riches he could have ever wanted, all the fine clothes and expensive things. Grace too had everything she could have ever desired waiting for her in a room on the house's second floor. But in Storybrooke there was no Grace. In this world she was called Paige. In this world Jefferson was a stranger, and her father was another.

As Jefferson sat alone in his mansion he concluded that greed was his worst sin, because even though it gave him everything he ever wanted, it had stolen everything he'd ever loved.

Now his greed was focused on something besides his daughter.

Magic was what he needed now. Magic would break the curse, magic would wake everyone up and return his daughter to him.

Magic could only be found within Emma.

He'd tasted her magic the night he'd kidnapped her and it had been intoxicating, like falling off the wagon after a long period of sobriety. Magic… he truly had missed its tingle.

Jefferson started to find excuses just to be around her. "Accidentally" running into her in the supermarket, or in Granny's in the morning as she bought her first cup of coffee. She'd arrested him the first dozen times or so, but as he'd pointed out she couldn't detain him legally without pressing charges, and then that would open up the whole can of worms of why she had been out in the forest in the middle of the night in the first place. So eventually Emma grew used to his pestering, and accepted him as an annoying facet of her life akin to pimples, and mosquito bites.

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Emma made a living out of punishing greedy people.

Emma herself, had never been particularly greedy. During her thieving years, she took what she needed to survive and only ever stole from those she decided could afford it; big chain stores and the like. She did feel guilty about taking from the individual workers who would undoubtedly pay for her actions… but a girl has to eat.

After her stint in jail, Emma had sworn off thieving and gotten a proper job... or at least a paying one; bounty hunter and private detective. Emma excelled at finding people, though she never did find her parents, and then there were some people she just didn't want to find no matter how sweet the revenge could be.

It wasn't until Henry came into her life that greed entered into her emotional vocabulary. After a while, after the initial worry for the kid's sanity had worn off, Emma found she began to crave time spent with Henry. Operation Cobra, though still kinda crazy, became fun because it was time spend with him. It was about that time that Regina's possessiveness became that much more irritating.

(Emma had thought she understood the meaning of the word irritating before she met Jefferson, but then he started stalking her.)

Jefferson's presence in Emma's life had become a source of almost perverse continuity in an environment that constantly shifted and challenged her. If there was one thing she could count on during her day it was Jefferson's intrusion into her routine. She'd come to expect him showing up sometime around the start of her day, usually while she got coffee at Granny's. Then again at lunch he'd wait for her outside the station and accompany her for food. Then once more as she made her final rounds of the day, usually slipping into the sheriff's car while she investigated a disturbance.

Over time he had begun to provide her with a sounding board for her annoyances with Regina and with life in general. Emma complained to Jefferson of Regina's latest efforts to bar her access to Henry or the like, and Jefferson would reply with a story of his own, usually detailing his escapades in the Fairy Tale Land. Granted, Emma didn't believe a word of such stories, but the experience of sharing is what began to bring them together. Soon they found that they liked a lot of the same crappy day-time TV, as well as sharing an affinity for French cuisine, greasy Chinese take-out, and black-and-white movies. Emma began to frequent Storybrooke's lone night club, the Rabbit Hole, which Jefferson owned, and Jefferson began to be seen out in public.

Meanwhile, people around town were noticing that their stern sheriff Emma was smiling more often and more sincerely, and most of them suspected her new friendship with the town's reclusive millionaire was the cause.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! If you liked: please review! If not: please review!

Next: Sloth


	3. Sloth

Sloth

In Wonderland, killing Time was a crime punishable by death. So sloth was the most dire of cardinal sins.

In Storybrooke, Time himself was guilty of sloth. Time crawled in Storybrooke, if it ever moved at all. As one of the only two residents of that fair town to have an awareness of time's passing, it was maddening to see the sun rise and set day upon day, upon week, upon month, upon year and for nothing to _ever_ change. So when Emma arrived and time was suddenly shaken out of his lazy slump and spurred into a brisk jog once more, Jefferson sat up and took notice.

Emma was a naturally lazy person. Saturday mornings of her life were usually spent in bed munching on a sugary breakfast cereal watching inane cartoons on television. This had continued for far more years than was socially acceptable. Work was work, and when Emma didn't have to work she usually lay about if she could get away with it. As a kid, the Pleasure Island aspect of the Pinocchio story had been vastly appealing… minus the bit where all the kids turned into donkeys.

It was this vice of Emma's that annoyed Jefferson the most. Her stubborn laziness fed into her inability to see the truth. Emma was so complacent with the monotony and boringness of her world that the wonder and magic just waiting for her to wake up to it would wait forever in vain due to her sloth.

Despite their growing friendship this was the source of most of their tension, and the root of most of their arguments. They would always end the same way; with Emma glaring at him, her lips pursed in a thin angry line, and Jefferson's demons screaming in his head as his hands tear at his hair and his eyes blaze with fiery wrath.

She is a reluctant goddess of rebirth and change, though she doesn't know it. While he is an agent of wrath and destruction… The unstoppable force meets the immovable object, and for both the experience is frustrating in the extreme.

So when Jefferson is presented the opportunity for change… even if that change was being offered by a serpent like Regina, it was irresistible for a desperate man like Jefferson.

Unfortunately, it was Henry who paid the price.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review!

Next: Pride


	4. Pride

A/N: I've decided to omit Neal from the picture here, as he provides an element that's way too complicated for me to cover in these shorts. In summary: no Neal, because I'm busy (lazy).

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Pride

Pride had always been one of Jefferson's worst sins.

As a young man cheating people out of their money or valuable objects had made him think that he was smarter than everyone else. In particular, he used to boast about tricking an emperor into believing that he could weave fabric out of thread so fine that it was only visible to people smart enough to see it. Later on Jefferson had revealed that the fabric was also invisible to those who were unfit for their position or incompetent. The emperor then commissioned Jefferson to make him a new wardrobe out of this fine material; agreeing to a price that bordered on the obscene. When the fateful day finally arrived and the Emperor revealed his fabulous new wardrobe to the royal court, not a single courtier made a peep about the emperor's nudity for fear of being discovered as incompetent or unworthy of their position. In Jefferson's retelling he usually left out the last part wherein he was run out of town by the palace guard after the Emperor revealed his new clothes to his people and the peasants had no qualms about informing their ruler that he had been fleeced and was therefore stark naked.

Jefferson's pride also carried over into Storybrooke. His pride was in his identity, his true identity. Jefferson, the Mad Hatter, Rumpelstiltskin's one time apprentice, and the proud father of Grace. The memories were painful, but he refused to ask Regina to modify the curse no matter how much the past tormented him.

For Emma, pride was her armor. She knew that if you considered yourself better than everyone else you would never grow attached, and their cruel words could never harm you. This strategy was flawed and only worked on rare occasion. Emma's pride also lent itself to her stubbornness, which meant that when it came to apologies; few were ever made, and the situations where she could be asked to give them were avoided.

But it is well known that pride always cometh before the fall.

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After the curse had broken it was pride that kept Jefferson and Emma from reconciling. There was also a fair amount of wrath left between them… it _had_ been Jefferson who'd retrieved the apple for Regina after all.

Ultimately, it was their children that brought them together again. Henry and Grace were still in the same class so Emma and Jefferson would occasionally run into each other as they deposited or retrieved their children at the school.

For the longest time they did not speak, the wrath and guilt and pride inside them roiling around and preventing any adult behavior from being enacted.

Meanwhile, Henry and Grace watched as their respective parents began to feel worse and worse the longer they avoided each other. So the two children decided to do something about it. They began to scheme during school hours, brainstorming different ideas about how to get their parents to admit that they liked each other or to at least forgive one another.

Henry pestered his mother about how she stared at Jefferson all the time, but all that did was earn frustrated groans from Emma and a scolding from David or Mary Margaret. Likewise Grace frequently asked her father about the Sheriff, though she was more subtle about it, only bringing it up when she caught her father peering out the window through his spy glass, undoubtedly watching over the Sheriff and the trouble she got herself into.

It wasn't long before the two children with the help of Ruby, Granny, Mary Margaret and Dr. Hopper were able to trick Emma and Jefferson into a snare meant to force them to rekindle their friendship… or at the very least to hash out their issues.

The plan was simple. It involved a phone call from Granny to Jefferson and Emma saying that their children were currently skipping school at her diner, and then leading them into the B and B where the two of them would be locked in the same room thinking that their children would be there. Much to Emma and Jefferson's chagrin the plan worked like a charm.

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A/N: Please review! Thanks for reading!

Up Next: Lust


	5. Lust

Lust

Before Emma and Jefferson found themselves locked together in a room at Granny's B & B, and long before Jefferson betrayed Emma to Regina they had been fighting a tension growing between them. A warmth in their hearts, and the magnetic draw of two souls both in desperate need of a connection to another, and two bodies hopelessly attracted to the other. It wasn't love at first sight by a long shot, but it certainly was lust, and it had only ever been growing worse since the day they met.

Since the death of Grace's mother only one or two women had caught Jefferson's interest, but none had done so in quite the same way as Emma. The night he'd held her in his home there had been an attraction between them that made the air thick with tension. She was the first human contact he'd had in almost thirty years. The scent of her hair had been intoxicating. The weight of her body in his arms… he'd almost abandoned his plans of hat-making for a different sort of activity altogether… almost.

For Emma the situation was even more complex. Jefferson wasn't entirely sane, and he had once held her hostage in his home in order to force her into believing in magic, and he'd frequently spoken to her of magic spells, fairytale creatures and the like. It didn't matter that in the end she'd discovered that he was telling the truth. Then there was the fact that he'd been the one to retrieve the poison apple for Regina which was meant to harm her if Henry had not interfered… Henry had apparently forgiven Jefferson for this, but Emma's stubborn pride stood in the way of them ever getting a chance to reconcile.

Now it seemed that the town had turned against them and decided to force them to sort out their differences by locking them in a room at Granny's until they made up.

The first hour or so was spent shouting and pounding on the door, attempting to get out of the situation entirely via reason, coercion, pleading and eventually threatening. It didn't work.

It was Jefferson who caved in the end and started the conversation which eventually devolved into a screaming match. Henry, Grace, and the others all listened from the opposite side of the door with concerned expressions on their faces. Dr. Hopper calming explained that this was probably natural. He emphasized the "probably" when a loud crash indicated something being thrown and shattering across the wooden door. Granny glared at him for the loss of one of her antique vases.

After five hours Emma tried to climb out the window. It was Granny and her crossbow that kept Emma from attempting to jump the dangerous two story drop. But Snow and Henry's terrified yells did more to persuade Emma than Granny's fearsome aim. Although Jefferson holding onto her wrists, didn't hurt either.

It was around about this time that Emma and Jefferson accepted the fact that they were in this room for the long haul. Ruby brought them dinner around seven in the evening, complete with a bottle of Emma's favorite whiskey to serve as nightcaps. Jefferson and Emma proceeded to get roaring drunk while the conspirators took shifts guarding the door.

Three shots in, Emma and Jefferson were laughing with each other over stories of Jefferson's various escapades as a conman and Emma's as a thief. Five shots in Emma and Jefferson shared their first kiss, which led to another, and then another.

Jefferson's mind had gone deliciously quiet in the presence of Emma's magic and he felt it enter into the air as she gave into her emotions. The fact that neither one of them had entered into this situation prepared for this outcome meant that they had to be creative with their desires, and spent the night exploring each other's bodies and learning what the other liked. Jefferson learned that Emma shuddered deliciously when he nibbled on her earlobe. She learned that he turned into a man-shaped kitten when she ran her fingers through his hair, and that he could be teased into a frenzy by playing with his scar.

It was early morning by the time they were sated and they sat naked on the floor of the hotel room sharing the final serving of whiskey, and discussing on amicable terms what was going to happen next. Eventually, after much coaxing and reasoning Emma agreed to have a go at dating Jefferson, and they started by sharing the bed together for the night.

It was a red-faced and apologetic Ruby who woke them the following morning as she brought them breakfast.

"Well, I hope you didn't want to keep this quiet." Emma said, ruefully. "Cause, Ruby'll tell the whole town by this afternoon."

Ruby returned just as the two of them had finished getting dressed and announced that they were free to leave the room. When they emerged into Granny's diner, they were greeted by the excited hugs of their children shouting. "It worked, it worked!" And they blushed at the wolfish grin on Ruby's face as Snow White chimed in that it worked better than anticipated.

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A/N: Please review! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!

Next: Envy


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